If you’re a struggling screenwriter, then have I got a script for you. I guarantee that if you write this script, Hollywood will pay you handsomely. But act fast, because I have a feeling we’re going to see at least half a dozen films like this over the next two years.
The script would be titled ‘Great Again.’ It would describe the adventures of a liberal Hollywood actress who travels to a small town in the Heartland to do research for a part in a film. The town… because there is no place for subtlety in Hollywood… will be called Drumpville. The actress’s name will be Hope. She is appalled by the bigotry and ignorance of the townspeople, all of whom are morbidly obese, addicted to heroin, and carry guns everywhere they go.
The plucky actress… with the help of a feminist schoolteacher and a transgendered illegal immigrant teenager, win the town over by teaching them the value of tolerance. At the end of the movie, the town has declared itself a sanctuary city, outlawed guns, and all the jobs come back when the Government funds a solar energy company. The actress wins a Golden Globe and the whole town turns out to cheer for her. I guarantee it will sell.
I guarantee it will win buckets of awards. I also guarantee it will do box office like Miss Sloane.
And, yeah, it is an awful lot like the plot of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything…
You forgot the part where she discovers that their backwards views all come from a sinister Rush Limbaugh character, who is in turn funded by the Koch brothers. Or is that for the sequel, probably titled ‘Fake News”.
Hmmm, …I was thinking more Sweet Home Alabama, Melanie’s bitchy outing of Bobby Ray in front of the whole bar.
Bobby Ray: What’d I ever do to you?
Melanie Carmichael: Oh, you didn’t do anything to me, darlin’… or any other girl in town!
..As if that was a secret; the boy quotes Women’s Wear Daily all over town in the street! Bobby Ray: Woo-oo. You look like sex on a stick in that Frederick Montana getup. And zazzy one-liners; Bobby Ray: Guys just get a stick, lets play some pool, alright? And if ya can’t find a cue just pull the one shoved up her ass.
The one false-note on the part of the screenwriters. Bobby Ray’s and a few of his friends’ embarrassed reactions should have been deflected by Jake or Elson calling Meanie out for it. The writers left it for the next evening.
Jake: Anybody think of anything in here that, uh, might bother Bobby Ray?
Wade: Uh, Clinton’s breath.
Jake: You still the same Bobby Ray from last night?
Bobby Ray: Last time I checked, yeah.
Jake: [puts arm on shoulder] Well, then, let me buy you a drink.
Bobby Ray: Well, you’re really not my type, I mean…
[laughter]
Patrick Swayze was so wonderful in To Wong Foo (may he RIP). That film came out in 1995 during a time when being a transvestite wasn’t acceptable period. That movie exposed a lot of people to characters they had never seen before. So did Philadelphia, The Birdcage, and In and Out. I wasn’t crazy about any of these film (well, except The Birdcage, which I found hilarious; Mike Nichols is an amazing director).
Also, I thought Miss Sloane was an unwise investment. A film about gun control is only going to do well if it’s more complex and politically ambiguous. Hollywood tends to make decisions like this a lot.
They also make films about the disabled that can change minds too.
If you do sell that as a screen play, make sure you get your money in advance; don’t accept residuals because there won’t be any!
Sometimes societal change comes so-fast that between the time it’s written, flogging-it about the studios, getting the green-light, casting, rewriting, filming, editing and distribution…society has just passed you by.
In the Birdcage, the young couple are supposed to the be innocents and the Senator the bad-guy. Yet if you watch it today, Armand is the bad-guy, his son Val and his GF you just want to slap for being assholes about everything, and the Senator and his wife get the audiences sympathies since they’ve basically been set-up by the children and Armand is the heavy. And Albert is a cringing cliche’, and Agador should be fired!!
Basically, it’s all Val’s fault. Did he learn NOTHING while he was growing-up with Armand and Albert? You just want the throttle him…
The one Patrick Swayze movie I have never heard of. … And now I suddenly wish Swayze had played Dr. Frank-N-Furter in a production of RHPS.
But as an aside, I’ve never seen real-life drag queens who are as hot “out-of-character” as mid-90s Swayze and Snipes.
Lol, the kids were the worst. Dianne Wiest and Nathan Lane were fantastic. Robin Williams was also great. Gene Hackman was good. It was an exceptional cast, though.
There are a few on RPDR whose names escape me (Milk for one).
Ted B. (#5), I think part of the problem is that “The Birdcage” is in effect the remake of a remake. The original movie (based on a play), “La Cage aux Folles” was done in 1978. It was a French Farce. The title can be translated as the “cage of the crazy/foolish women”. It later got turned into a hit musical, and only later was re-done with the comedy of Robin Williams and company. So your sense of the real world passing by the premise of the movie make sense.
I haven’t seen the Robins Williams version as I don’t like French Farce to begin with, and then adding the over-the-top-ness of Williams and Nathan Lane is too much for me. But in the original movie, the kids were somewhat sympathetic to Albin, if a bit narrow in their ides for their wedding.